Remote working is increasingly seen as an effective model in several countries in the last decade, mainly thanks to the development of information and communication technologies in support of common daily working tasks. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has represented a pivotal moment for the adoption of remote working in multiple sectors, with positive effects on the environmental impacts caused by the daily commuting of workers. However, due to the fact that pandemic-induced remote working has represented a major forced experiment on a global scale, and that it has often been imposed rather than chosen by employees, workers’ well-being has not always been ensured. This research work presents an analysis of a wide survey of remote workers in public administrations in four different provinces in Italy, with the aim of assessing the main characteristics of the users and the related environmental benefits. Survey data refer to remote workers before COVID-19, thus representing workers who have freely chosen to work from home for different reasons. The results of this work represent a useful tool with which to support the definition of new remote work strategies that could help policy makers reduce a part of the systematic mobility demand. We have also calculated average energy and emission savings to provide useful indicators for a preliminary estimation of the potential environmental benefits of remote working. Considering the entire sample of respondents, workers who would have commuted at least partially by car have saved on average 6 kg of CO₂ per day thanks to remote working (with an average round-trip commuting distance of approximately 35 km). The current results will be supplemented by the results of a new survey underway, aimed at evaluating the differences of remote working experiences during the emergency response to COVID-19.

The transport sector worldwide relies heavily on oil products, and private cars account for the largest share of passenger mobility in several countries. Public transport could represent an interesting alternative under many perspectives, including a decrease in traffic, pollutants, and climate emissions. However, for public transport to succeed, it should be attractive for final users, representing a viable alternative to private mobility. In this work, we analyse the spatial distribution of public transport service provision within two metropolitan cities, considering the three key dimensions of mobility, competitiveness, and accessibility of public transport. The results show that private car performs better than public transport in all scopes considered, and that performance indicators are highly variable among city areas, indicating inequalities in social and environmental sustainability in urban systems. The outcomes of the analysis provide interesting insights for policy makers and researchers that deal with similar topics, and can also be extended to other cities and countries.